Martha Jones
Canon Point Following her last full appearance on Doctor Who (‘Journey’s End’) but before the off screen wedding that is mentioned in ‘The End of Time II’ and Torchwood’s Children of Earth, when she was apparently on her honeymoon. Background Born in 1986 to Francine and Clive Jones, Martha was raised – along with her siblings, Tish and Leo – by her mother following her parent’s divorce. She studied medicine at university and was working as a student doctor at London’s Royal Hope Hospital when she encountered the Doctor for the first time. She impressed the Time Lord – who had infiltrated the hospital by posing as a patient – by remaining calm after the Judoon transported the hospital to the moon. As the Judoon searched the hospital for a renegade plasmavore, the oxygen in the hospital – which had been transported in a sealed bubble and with a limited air supply – began to run out. Martha risked her life to resuscitate the Doctor and give him a chance to stop the plasmavore and encourage the Judoon to return the hospital. Later that day, the Doctor tracked down Martha and offered to take her on a single trip in the TARDIS. Although this single trip eventually became several trips, giving Martha the chance to visit New Earth and encounter the Daleks, the Doctor eventually returned her to Earth. As he prepared to say goodbye, he overheard a TV news story about Professor Lazarus and the pair found themselves caught up in another adventure. Afterwards, he invited her on board for one more trip, but Martha, who wanted to be more than a passenger, declined. Eventually, the Doctor invited her aboard permanently. Martha and the Doctor travelled together for over a year. They spent three month on Earth while the Doctor, who altered his biology and became temporarily human, hid from the Family of Blood and ended up trapped in 1969 after an encounter with the infamous weeping angels, amongst other things. Furthermore, during their adventures, Martha developed – and tried, with mixed success, to hide – unreciprocated romantic feelings for her Time Lord companion. Events took an unexpected turn when Captain Jack Harkness, a former companion of the Doctor, unintentionally forced the TARDIS to travel to the end of the universe. On the planet of Malcassairo, they found the last survivors of the human race, who, under the guidance of Professor Yana, were attempting to find a way to leave their dying universe and escape to the mythical Utopia. Too late, the Doctor realised that Yana was actually a Time Lord, the Master, who had escaped from the Time War by altering his own biology. With his true consciousness restored, the Master stole the TARDIS. Martha, Jack and the Doctor had no choice but to follow him back to Earth using Jack’s vortex manipulator. They soon learned that Harold Saxon, the newly elected prime minister, was actually the Master, who arrested Martha’s family and captured the Doctor and Jack before they could stop him from releasing the deadly Toclafane and taking over the Earth. Martha escaped, spending the next year travelling the ravaged Earth and spreading stories of the Doctor. To defeat the Master, everyone had to think of the Doctor at a specific time. The combined force of their thoughts – which was multiplied by the power of their ruler’s own satellite system – restored the Doctor to full strength. Furthermore, the destruction of the paradox machine that the Master had constructed to facilitate the release of the Toclafane caused time to rewind. Only the people on board the Valiant retained their memories of the Master’s year of power. (The Master himself was shot and killed by his wife, Lucy.) Although the Doctor wanted her to return to the TARDIS, Martha decided that her family – who had been tortured repeatedly by the Master during their year in captivity – needed her more. She also acknowledged the fact that she couldn’t spend the rest of her life hoping that the Doctor would fall in love with her. Having left the TARDIS and the Doctor behind her, Martha completed her medical training and joined the United Nations Intelligence Task Force. (She also remained in contact with Jack, forming a close relationship with his Torchwood team and joining forces with them on a number of occasions.) She spent most of her time helping her family deal with their post traumatic stress and, eventually, met and became engaged to Thomas Milligan, a fellow doctor who had saved her life when she was captured by the Master. Martha was briefly reunited with the Doctor when he joined forces with UNIT to prevent an invasion by the Sontarans. She was imprisoned and cloned during their attack, but her clone died shortly after the Doctor rescued her. Before dying, she told Martha that she had so much life left to live and so much still to do. With that in mind, she turned down the Doctor’s offer to travel with him again and, after a brief trip to Messaline, returned home. A short time later, Martha moved to New York to act as medical director on UNIT’s Project Indigo. While she was working in Manhattan, the Earth was transported to the Medusa Cascade by Davros and the Daleks. Martha used the incomplete teleportation device to travel to London and find the Doctor, carrying with her the dangerous Osterhagen Key. The key, when combined with pieces carried by other UNIT operatives, could be used to destroy the Earth instead of leaving it in their hands of the Daleks. Before Martha could use it, however, she was teleported to the Dalek vessel and joined forces with the Doctor and the other ‘children of time’ to defeat them. Jack offered Martha a job at Torchwood when they returned to Earth, but she declined in order to continue her work at UNIT. Tom had been killed during the Dalek attack, but, over time, Martha developed a close friendship and, eventually, romantic feelings for another former companion of the Doctor’s, Mickey Smith. Although his attempts to get her to leave UNIT and go freelance have been unsuccessful, she had no qualms about accepting when he proposed. Personality Helping people has always been very important to Martha. It started when she became the family peacemaker and eventually developed into a desire to become a doctor. She takes the Hippocratic oath very seriously, although her travels with the Doctor encouraged her to reinterpret certain parts of it. She’ll fight to save alien life as well as human life but she has, in the past, been forced to – unwillingly and not without guilt – take life in order to preserve it. Even when she is scared or uncertain, Martha will make caring for other people a priority. She is particularly protective when it comes to the people she holds dear. Hurting her loved ones – she is fiercely loyal to those she respects, but you have to earn that respect first – is the easiest way to make an enemy of Martha. Martha is not afraid of voicing her opinions or standing up for herself and is brave enough to rise to the many challenges presented by life with the Doctor. She is also incredibly determined and frequently stubborn. For example, she refuses to continue to travel with the Doctor unless he accepts her as more than a temporary guest and won’t leave New Earth until the Doctor tells her about Gallifrey. It takes a lot – an act of great injustice, for example, or a threat directed at her family – to make Martha lose her temper, but she can be sharp when the situation calls for it. Like most of the Doctor’s companions, Martha is naturally inquisitive and eager for adventure. A conscientious, intelligent and responsible student, the Doctor gave her the chance to explore parts of the universe that she’d never even dreamed of. She couldn’t help but fall in love with him, although she hated herself for feeling jealous of Rose and she was furious with herself for allowing him to make her feel like second best. She’d always been taught to respect herself and she’d always known that she was better than that. In the end, she left the TARDIS – and the Doctor – to prove as much to herself. She wasn’t willing to spend her whole life pining over someone who would never return her feelings. Since returning to Earth, Martha has become both more responsible and more independent. She has thrown herself wholeheartedly into her important role on Earth and won’t let herself regret what she gave up or gaze wistfully at stars she can no longer visit. She made her choice and she knows that it was the right one to make. Martha throws herself into her work with remarkable fervour, because it is her duty to help to protect an entire planet. (She’s had the fate of the human race on her shoulders before and, although that time has passed, she can’t let go of the burden entirely.) As well as staying strong for the people that rely on her and denying the fact that the year that never was still haunts her, Martha has her heart set on improving UNIT. Once, she saved the world with words instead of weapons. She won’t be made into a soldier and likes to think that she can change things from the inside. As tempting as joining Torchwood or going freelance might be at times, she knows that she can make more of a difference with UNIT resources at her disposal. Abilities and Weaknesses Martha is an ordinary human, with all the standard vulnerabilities that that entails. Although her travels through time and space have left her with a unique immune system and mutated red blood cells, and although she has an improved resistance to most diseases, she has no superpowers or special abilities. She is, however, very good at running. (It’s a companion prerequisite.) She’s also an accredited medical doctor who is, thanks to her UNIT training and her travels, particularly good at working in the field. She can use weapons such as firearms, but she prefers not to. She’ll always be, first and foremost, a doctor. Category:Living Category:Characters